The rendering of two-dimensional (2D) computer generated images (CGI) from three-dimensional (3D) models, once done only as part of performing relatively specialized computer-based functions, is increasingly employed in ever more aspects of operating computing devices. Specifically, although video games continue to present the most prevalent use of such images, their use has begun to take hold in websites and as part of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) of an ever increasing array of devices.
Although advances in the design of graphics rendering hardware and increases in the efficiency of rendering algorithms have enabled much of this increasing use of CGI based on 3D models, these advances and efficiency increases have not been sufficient to fully address the limits in processing and power resources that are typical in portable devices. Specifically, the work of shading graphics primitives to provide color and texture to objects in an image continues to demand considerable processing resources, which in turn, places considerable demands on the limited power resources afforded by the batteries and/or other power sources typically found in portable devices. Further, as the pixel resolutions of the displays incorporated into portable devices continue to increase, reductions that have been made in processing and power requirements have been overwhelmed by the exponential increase in the amount of shading caused by such resolution increases. Still further, as expectations of realism in CGI have heightened, shading has become more routinely augmented with implementing motion blur and/or depth-of-field effects.
Previous efforts have been made to at least limit these increasing demands on power resources by attempting to directly reduce the amount of shading that is performed. Various techniques have been devised to make determinations of what graphics primitives and/or what portions of graphics primitives actually need to be shaded. Unfortunately, despite alleviating some of the shading burden, many of these previous efforts require extensive changes to graphics rendering hardware that can ironically increase power resource requirements, including ever more specialized graphics processing units (GPUs) and/or considerable alteration of the architectures of typical hardware-based graphics rendering pipelines to support such features as the generation and sorting of complex buffers.